Demolition Squid

And in case you only chuckled at the previous link and didn't explore further...this is great to!

Demolition Squid

Want pie?

Just stumbled across this site....brilliant!!

Want pie?

Busy busy busy!

Not really had much tie to do computer stuff this week as work has been manic! Helping to organise a conference and the main organisers seem to forget that I'm helping in addition todoing my normal full time job! Oh well it'll all be over soon!

Over on Niles's blog there's some nice pictures of Everest and it reminded me that the Director of our unit at work is currently trying to climb Everest as I type. You can catch up with his progress here. the best part is the 'bowels rating' where he gives an update on the situation. I'm not sure what motivates people to climb Everest in the first place? I think what would annoy me most is the cruching sense of anti-climax when you've reached the top and you realise you have to climb back down again! I suppose it will give you a different persepective though. Anyway check it out its quite an interesting read!

I just want to mention another website as well, How Stuff Works. This is a great site for answering so many questions. It has gone a little commercial (ads and stuff) in recent years but generally the content is pretty good. There's a good article about the origin of Wonder Woman on there as well.

Pretzels

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

Despite going to bed at 6.10am this morning and getting up at midday I still managed to find time to make pretzels! I am insane! Now these are very tasty but I'm not sure they were worth the effort to be honest. Lots of kneading, waiting and pissing about rolling out. The problem is my work top was not large enough to roll them out properly! That's why I've ended up with these kinda fat looking pretzels! I've also made a couple of meat and potato pies! Look at Flickr (link somewhere around here) in the food directory to see the results.

She's back!

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

Bringing the digital camera with her. Hooray I can take random pictures and update my blog with stuff.

A visit to Camden market produced a nice t-shirt for me whihc apparently is titled 'Figting Spirit' (spelling mistake intentional). Although slight downside is that it requires a cold hand wash....hmm perhaps Kath could do that for me?

Also I had a little box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts bought back for me from Selfridges, yummy!

Wisdom of age

I wonder if there will come a time in my life when i realise things are bad for me and I don't actually do them?

When I was younger I would think nothing of doing things and assuming my body would cope. Now I'm in the stage when I know its ill advisable to stay up all through the night, even worse if its playing video games but yet I still do it. I wonder how old I'll have to be when I realise I'll feel shit afterwards enough so that I don't do the thing in the first place!

Needless to say I helped Sister Psyche (alongside my Task Force) and stopped Clamour of the Freakshow from turning Brickstown into a new Faultline, much to the relief of the citizens of Paragon City!

The digital revolution

I love my digital camera! Its strange that before pictures didn't really seem so important. Now, with digital, I'm always snapping away. I kinda feel lost as Kath has taken away with her to capture the excitement of her weekend in London, yet I wish I had it here so that I could take some photos and show what a good job I made of changing the bed (see blog below). I wonder if someone will be able to read this in years to come? It may be that my family learns about my past via a blog? I certainly think that this has become a habit now and hopefully it'll continue.

The absence of the camera has made me think if we should upgrade and become a 2 (digital) camera family? Already we have 2 cars (although one belongs to my employer), we have 2 telephones and recently we got a second televison. Is it time for a second camera? I was looking at the Nikon Coolpix 4600 which is essentailly an upgrade of the one we already have. It would make things easier memory card and functionality wise, but should I play safe? To be honest its a bit of a moot point at the moment as I don't have £150 to spare but maybe when I get my bonus....

One thing K and I have been looking at is getting involved in the geograph photography project. This project wants to get a photographic record of the country. It looks like our area is pretty poorly represented so perhaps we can do something about that?

While the Kath's away....

...Leigh ends up doing the housework! Although I have been a bit of a demon already...a load of washing, the supermarket shop and I've changed the bed. God is that a nightmare or what? Good job beds are designed for sleeping, changing one is a knackering experience. (Note to self: Help Kath change the bed in future)

Yes I am wife-less this weekend and instead of living it up I'm doing housework. I've also got a list of cooking projects I want to tackle. Yay! I can do what I want, eat what I want, stay up as late as I like! What will probably happen is I'll eat bacon sandwiches for every meal and go to bed really early. Thats the kind of crazy guy I am.

Present from Wales

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Originally uploaded by Leighbob.

We treated ourselves in Wales and bought a new number for our house. And here it is in all its glory...nice eh!

Apparently its welsh slate and we should clean it only with Linseed oil. The question is should I keep the old ratty number so that when we move house I can take this one with us?

Time to come clean

I must say I've really been enjoying the new Doctor Who!! Now I'm sure some of my friends will express surprise at this, as my annoyance at Doctor Who has been a point of interest over the years.

I am finding the new stories interesting but I must admit that I'm finding Christopher Ecclestone a little tiring. All he seems to do is have an inane grin and folds his arms a lot. Having said that its lots of fun to spot all the semi-famous actors guest starring all over the place! Penelope Wilton (who was great in Shaun of the Dead) cropped up in a two parter this week that we didn't realise was a two parter, imagine Kath's face when the end credits music started in the middle of a cliff hanger (although we didn't know it was a cliff hanger at the time!) The BBC slightly ruined the effect by showing a 'Next time on...' style clip at the end that ruined any suspense of the Doctor being in serious jeopardy. Oh well I guess that's the consequence of a society with the attention span of a. Anyway looking forward to what the rest of the series will bring and then the prospect of a new Doctor in the shape of David Tenant. Kath and I have really enjoyed Casanova which has been on with him in it so hopefully he'll make a good Doctor. (Not sure of the grammar or sense of that last sentance but I can't be arsed to sort it out!)

Tony B. Liar

Ok...so I just watched the Paxman interview with Tony Blair and I must say he seemed to come across quite well! Far better than I thought he would...hmm stilll don't think I'm going to vote Labour though! What will be really interesting though is the Michael Howard interview on Friday. Must remember to watch it.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Election Blues

After my initial excitement with the General Election my interest is starting to wane slightly. Sure there's coverage everywhere but nothing really exciting has happened! Where's the Deputy PM, John Prescott when you need him? I can just imagine him puching some old granny...now that would stir things up!

The BBC have got loads of coverage as per usual and there's some great Peter Snow tools on their website to play with! Fortunately I'm on leave form work the week on the general election so I'll definitely be able to vote and hopefully stay up late enough to catch the action as it unfolds. Reading some of the manifestos is great fun as well! UKIPs or Veritas...I can't remember which think we should pull down all wind farms and replace them with Nuclear power stations...a sure fire hit with the voters there methinks!

I'm looking forward to watching the Paxman Interviews tonight as he is interviewing Tony Blair...should make interesting telly!

Speaking of which The Apprentice is on tonight. We've really got into that show even though reality TV is not usually our thing. They are so annoying on it that it makes compulsive viewing. Hopefully Paul will go tonight as he is really annoying!

Video games gone mad

Just got time to post this crazy link with people singing Nintendo video game tunes a cappella with actions to go with! Crazy!!

Weird singing people

Wales

In other news we just spent a week in Wales (after the kitchen was done in main part but before the finishing touches were done). I didn’t know what to expect but it was great to get a week off from work. The cottage was different to what we were expecting but once we got used to it, it was great. I suppose Wales will forever be in my mind as a place where there are sheep everywhere, it rains a lot and everywhere has a strange sounding name.

We did however climb Snowdon (and none of the train up and down malarkey) which was an experience. Kath had been keeping me motivated by the thought of the café at the top…somewhere warm to sit and dry off. We did take waterproofs but the sunny skies and clement weather at the base threw us off guard and by the time we should have had waterproofs on we were already soaked through. The café turned out to be a bitter disappointment as it was shut, so instead we huddled in the lee of it, out of the wind drinking tea from a flask. I guess what really made it special was the dense ,clinging fog which stripped away any sense of achievement of climbing 1000m. We could have been anywhere for all we could see!!

Other exciting daytrips included Bangor (please ignore the song, there’s absolutely piss all there) and Lllandudno which was actually quite nice. Especially when I made Kath think she’d left her glasses behind in the restaurant! God I’m mean sometimes!

We also went to the CAT, which is the Centre for Alternative Technology. Very interesting but I do feel somewhat guilty now about everything I do. It became clear that we should do more for the environment so we are going to start trying. Number one on the list is to start composting, followed by buying local produce and buying green energy. All of them are eminently achievable its just getting around to doing it. B&Q only seem to sell a composter that is far, far too large for the 2 of us and would take up half my garden. The problem is I don’t want to go the worms route because you have to actually look after them or they’ll die. I need to do some scouting on the net and see what I can find.

My new cooker

The finishing touch

Lovely Kitchen

Hell's Kitchen

Before you start nagging I know its been a long time since there’s been any activity on my blog, but in my defence I’ve been hellishly busy!!

I’ll try and update you on everything but please accept my sincere apologies for missed items! So where to start?

I guess the kitchen has to be the starting point. I’m about ready to talk about it now. I can really see the appeal of getting people in to do this sort of job for you. I guess my expectations were wrong and I shouldn’t have expected it done in only 4 days. Still 2 weeks on and it is finally finished and might I say looking fine indeed!! It’s almost a shame that my living room and dining room were out of action at the same time (due to piles of kitchen and DIY stuff) because when the kitchen was finished I spent most of my time enjoying a tidy living room and dining room but what can you do!

My next post will include some pictures but until then....a massive thanks to my parents, to my dad for doing most of the work (in my defence he wouldn’t let me help, perhaps he knows what I’m like with tools) and thanks to mum for giving me a high score to beat on the DS. Seriously between the 8 trips to B&Q over the weekend my mum spent the rest of the time playing a handheld computer game!!!

But that is all behind me know….its finished and I put the very last finishing touch on to it just now!